Maundy Thursday

I love the religious calendar. It is as though a bunch of alarm clocks were smuggled into the year, strategically timed to rouse my heart from slumber and open my eyes to the full meaning of my experience.

With every passing year, this song means more for me. Incarnation, Epiphany, Lent, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and Advent again. This cycle, Christ's cycle, is my cycle, too. Each milestone reminds me of my own experience: new creation, death to self, resurrection, ascension, life eternal. The pattern contains revelation to assure me, promise to thrill me, mystery to keep me reaching.

I look into my heart and count the rings, read the weathers of each particular season: sunshine and rain, draught and flood, harvests abundant and scant. I am consoled to see that, even without my knowledge or desire, each ring came to completion. Each new ring grew wider than the one before.

I think: You are growing.

I may at times feel vulnerable to the elements, at the mercy of the weathers of the world. But then I am reminded that I am a sacred tree, planted beside the living water. My roots tighten their grip. My branches curve up and spread out.

I photosynthesize with zeal.